


Moonstruck

by moustacheMythology



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Magical Creatures AU, Magical Realism, The boys are dorks, i guess? I mean magical creatures exist but so do humans and everything is pretty much the same, shyanexchange2k18, shyanwritingevents, vampire!Shane, werewolf!Ryan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-06 03:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15877677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moustacheMythology/pseuds/moustacheMythology
Summary: The boys are stupidly in love with each other but neither seems to notice until one fateful night at a location.





	Moonstruck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkAliceLilith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAliceLilith/gifts).



> Written for DarkAliceLilith, for the shyanwritingevents' Shyan Exchange 2018, for the prompt of Vampire!Shane and Werewolf!Ryan, hope you like it! Not gonna lie I think I rewrote this thing like 4 or 5 times because there were so many directions I wanted to go with it but I think this turned out well enough.

Shane stood in the middle of the refrigerated section of the food store staring at an odd assortment of blood bags. The row went on for a while, all possible types – A, B, O, negative, positive, blood with just a _hint_ of rosemary, blood from cows that were fed the finest grasses and massaged daily, sugar-free blood, organic blood (whatever that meant) - literally anything a vampire could want. But Shane’s tired brain didn’t really feel like thinking too hard so he grabbed a few random ones and moved on.

It had to have been around 3 a.m. and while it wasn’t too late in his day – or night rather? – he hadn’t slept well that day, or really any day that week.

A buzzing in his pocket broke him from his stupor and he reached in to find his phone while juggling his shopping basket.

“Hey,” Shane said, shoving his phone between his ear and shoulder as he perused the shelf of microwave popcorn – his one weakness. He’d bear the terrible stomachache later if it meant he’d get to share a bowl of that salty, buttery goodness with his best bro.

“Hey, are you still at the food store?” Ryan’s voice came from the speaker. Shane’s heart melted a little when he heard it. Funny how a something that’s technically dead and belonging to an otherworldly creature do something so incredibly human.

“Yup!” Shane replied.

“Could you grab some more –“

“Popcorn? I’m already on it,” Shane laughed a little.  He could practically see Ryan pumping his fist in the air in excitement.

“ _Awesome_ , I’ll see you in a little bit then, babe,” Ryan said quickly.

“Don’t call me –“ Shane tried to say jokingly but was cut off by the call ending. _Babe_ , Ryan was throwing that word around a lot lately and it was doing terrible things to him and his stupid, traitorous heart.

It was a crush. Just a stupid, little, super unprofessional and completely unwanted crush on his best friend and co-worker. Nothing more than that. It was totally normal to fall in love a little bit with your best friend, it was _Ryan,_ who possibly wouldn’t fall in love with him after spending so much time with him?

As much as Shane enjoyed doing their Unsolved series – after all, according to Ryan, if werewolves, vampires, fae, and so on could exist then why not ghosts? – they did spend _a lot_ of time together between filming, editing, and y’know, literally having their desks right next to each other. All of it was ample time to notice how cute Ryan was when he laughed at some dumb joke that Shane made or how protective he was over his Paddington toy or how his face scrunched up whenever he came across a particularly undecipherable Ghost Box recording. And _oh_ don’t even get Shane started on Ryan’s arms – nope, not the time or place to be thinking about them.

Annoying crushes aside – like really, he was hundreds of years old and yet he felt like he was a bumbling teen again sometimes – Unsolved was kind of the perfect assignment. All of their filming could be done at night when he wouldn’t get an awful sunburn if he dared to show a square inch of skin, he got paid to hang with his best bro, and any humans they met on location working with the paranormal were never weird about supernatural people.

But as much as he loved his job and the people he worked with, it was a relief for the week to be over, and Friday nights – or technically Saturday morning – meant movie night.

Shane glanced at the time on his phone and rushed over to the check-out station. He had stopped at the store on the way to Ryan’s place after work and didn’t want to take too long, it was nearing the full moon and Ryan’s anxiety usually spiked around that time.

Thankfully, LA traffic wasn’t quite as bad at night as it was during the day so he pulled up to Ryan’s apartment complex not too long after he had called.

Shane took the stairs two at a time and knocked on Ryan’s door before opening it with his spare key. He slipped off his shoes and walked through, following the smell of meat cooking in the kitchen to find Ryan sautéing some sort of steak dish on the stove – Ryan’s appetite always seemed to go through the room whenever it was around the full moon.

Ryan glanced over and jumped a little when he saw Shane.

“Jesus, dude!” Ryan said, laughing a little. Shane laughed, it really was too easy to startle Ryan.

“Sorry, let myself in,” Shane said, putting his blood bags in the fridge until they were ready to start snacking during the movie, when he looked in he saw he still had a couple left over from the last time they hung out.

“Honestly, man, you might as well just move in at some point with how often you are over,” Ryan said behind him, noticing the extra blood as well.

There were some days that Shane was thankful for his inability to blush and today was definitely one of those days. It really wouldn’t do him any favors to think about how much he would love to have that simple domesticity of living together but he just laughed it off instead.

“What movie were you thinking for tonight?” Shane changed the subject, oh-so-subtly, and closing the fridge door.

“Not sure, I heard The Witch was pretty good?” Ryan replied trying to nonchalant.

A horror movie. Shane was always amused whenever Ryan tried to put himself through the terror of watching them. Every single time without fail Ryan would barely be able to sit through it until the end without giving up out of fright, and then he would have to sleep with every single light on in the apartment. Shane could never decide if he was more impressed or annoyed by Ryan’s stubbornness to try again and again to enjoy the movies.

After that, they gathered their snacks together and camped out on the couch, queuing up the movie and settling in for the night. Ryan’s place wasn’t too small but as far as furniture went in the living area, all he had was a couch in front of the TV, something that may have annoyed other people with the lack of sprawl room but Shane always appreciated the excuse to sit close to Ryan – especially during movie nights.

Ryan hit play on the screen and the movie started. The movie was good Shane had to admit, honestly more of the horror of the film came from how terrifying the Puritans were as people but still amusing in its own right, nothing too freaky. He’d probably think twice about spending time around goats, but now that’s at least an excuse to turn down Sara the next time she begs him to come do goat yoga with her.

Ryan on the other-hand was about to completely lose his shit, and as much as Shane hated seeing Ryan upset there was a small part of him that took joy in an afraid Bergara. Ryan moved closer and closer to Shane as Shane watched Ryan’s face cycle through an array of emotions.

They were halfway through and Ryan had already stress-eaten all of his food and most of the popcorn while Shane lazily slurped his glass of blood. The two started at opposite ends of the three-seater couch but Ryan had slowly migrated his way across the couch until he was right next to Shane.

Ryan startled at a jump scare and Shane had to hold himself back from laughing at his friend. Instead he took the opportunity to wrap his arm around the other guy. For a big, bad werewolf, Ryan could turn into a whimpering puppy at the silliest things. Shane had to at least hand it Ryan when they went on locations whenever Ryan would freak in the really old, abandoned places. Vermin and loose floorboards were at least legitimate things to worry about and the night did make every creak and groan of an old house settling did set a spooky mood, but movies on the other hand, maybe Shane was just old-fashioned, but he could just never get into them.

Shane pulled Ryan closer and Ryan immediately took the cue to snuggle up. Shane knew that if he had a working heart that it’d be racing a mile a minute. Ryan always ran so hot and Shane appreciated times like this where he was able to defrost emotionally and physically.

Eventually the credits started rolling and Ryan seemed to finally notice their position. He looked up at Shane and suddenly they were in each other’s faces.

It would be so, so easy to just kiss him right now, Shane thought to himself. And Ryan seemed to have the same sentiment as he glanced at Shane’s lips.

It would be so easy to just –

But in that moment, commercials blared out of the speakers as the credits finished and the home screen came back up completely snapping them out of it.

Ryan leaned out of Shane’s arms to reach for the remote and Shane immediately feel cold again. The moment was over and Shane wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that.

Ryan needed something a bit more lighthearted after the movie to calm him down, and Shane couldn’t agree more – he didn’t really have the emotional stamina to handle another moment like that tonight – and so they turned on one of the more ridiculous ghost hunting shows.

“Why would we watch them! This is our jobs,” Shane complained.

Ryan just laughed and said something about it was more fun to see other people freak out that himself, but Shane was too distracted by his smile to pay attention.

It would be a long night.

Eventually Ryan started to nod off and Shane shut off the television for him and corralled Ryan into bed to go to sleep. Shane was way too keyed up to even bother sleeping, but knew he had to be home before the sun was up. So, he said goodnight to Ryan and told him he’d see him on Monday evening when they planned to start heading out to a new location for the show. And with that, he left for his own apartment.

++++++++++

He loved his show, he really did. He never thought a show about “hunting” ghosts would really appeal to anyone, but the number of viewers the boys got on their videos proved otherwise. The world was filled with all sorts of types of people, Ryan himself was a werewolf, Shane and Andrew were vampires, Sarah a nymph, Rie a kitsune, the list goes on and on… wow now that Ryan thought about it Buzzfeed had _a lot_ of non-humans. Adam is a human, though many people on the internet seem to be insistent on the idea that he’s “cinnamon roll”, but still.

Anyway, with a world full of different types of people, you’d think that it wasn’t too ridiculous to want to understand more about ghosts. Shane seemed to think that they were either a) too hard to even find to really make an interesting enough show about them or b) even if they did get a chance to talk to a ghost, they were too far gone to help. This of course was where him and Ryan never saw eye to eye on things, sure at least Shane had an excuse to be a jaded old man, what with him y’know, _being_ a jaded old man – it was a common joke around the office to try and figure out how old Shane was. For a guy that is so obsessed with facts he was pretty okay with people get carried away with figuring out his backstory.

A year ago, when Ryan came up to his friend to pitch his new show idea - to find ghosts in haunted locations and help them find peace - Shane snorted. Well, he agreed to be on the show but he didn’t hide the fact that he thought it was kind of ridiculous. Ryan was okay with that; Shane’s attitude added some balance to the show and the audience seemed to appreciate. And anyway, the show was a perfect scenario for Shane, because of the whole vampire thing and his skin being super sensitive to the sunlight, he generally preferred to work night shifts anyway so wandering around haunted places in the night was a win-win for them.

But not always for Ryan though, they were generally on a pretty tight schedule for filming which brings him to his primary internal conundrum and thing to stress about today: the full moon. Ryan liked to think he was a pretty chill guy…in normal situations at least. But this really wasn’t a normal situation, or maybe it was. Since the start of the show his life had gotten pretty weird. Being in old houses usually amped up his anxiety and tonight was a full moon to add on top of that– a total oversight in scheduling. Usually on full moons he tried to stay at home and just chill. He had pretty good control over shifting but _really_ did not like pushing it. Unfortunately, though, this month that couldn’t happen as it was the night that they had to finish up filming their last episode for their season.

_Another season finale,_ it seemed like just yesterday that they started filming together and now they’re finishing shooting another season. Ryan liked to think that him and Shane were pretty good friends before the show, but over the past year working so close together, it was obvious to literally anyone that their friend had grown.

It had been all fine and dandy for Ryan up until Friday night.

Friday night was like any other Friday night Ryan tried to tell himself. Just two dudes, hanging out and watching a scary movie, just like every other week. Yeah. Totally.

And yet Ryan just couldn’t get that one moment out of his head. That moment where his faces was inches from Shane’s, so close he could smell the popcorn on his friend’s icy breath.

It’s not like it was the first time that Ryan had ever though of kissing Shane. He was Ryan’s closest friend and a great guy. If Ryan wanted a laugh or a shoulder to cry on that person would always be Shane and that probably wasn’t going to change anytime soon, but there was just something about those few seconds Friday night that just pulled Ryan’s little, tiny, minute really, crush on his best friend into reality. There was just that moment of realization of, wow he is _right there and I could kiss him right now and everything could change forever_ that fled as soon as it came.  

So the next week as Ryan stood beside his best friend in the entire world, gear all set up, holy water clipped to his belt just in case any demons come by, and moon big and bright in the sky highlighting Shane’s face in a way that made Ryan a little weak in the knees, he could barely stop his crushing realization.

_He was helplessly in love with his best friend._  

“Hey man, I think we should scout out the place a little before we start filming,” Shane said to Ryan, as the rest of their crew was unpacking their rental van and checking camera batteries one last time. The early-Victorian home loomed over them, covered in ivy and in a state of near dilapidation.

Ryan broke from his mini-crisis and followed Shane as he walking to the house, he knew his friend was trying to distract him from the full moon. It was the little things that Shane did that really made Ryan fucked. Shane was a great friend, the best really, and because of that it made it hard for Ryan to not fall for him, anyone with half a brain would. Even just pin pointing the start of all of his emotional madness was impossible.

Maybe it was one of the nights were the two of them promised to finally finish one of the horror movies off of their long list to watch together but couldn’t help but completely ignore it halfway through and become absorbed in each other instead of on the screen. Ryan feeling loose for once, a little more than tipsy on beer and Shane slowly chipping away a bottle of vodka regaling Ryan with one of the stories of his past – sometimes so ridiculous that he couldn’t decide whether or not the man was telling the truth but the lilt of his voice as his accent from back home crept its way in, filled Ryan’s heart with affection and a willingness to believe anything he said.

Or maybe it was the memory of strong arms wrapped around him as he felt like he was unraveling on his bathroom floor. The cold tile seeping through his clothes and chilling him to the core. His breathing uneven as he tried to calm down from one of his panic attacks that sometimes crippled him at night during the full moon. Trying to push Shane away because he could hurt him – hurt his best friend, because no matter what the corny afterschool specials said, he was a monster – despite being immortal and seemingly invincible, but only being pulled closer and tighter as Shane whispered in his ear words he could barely understand but they were said in such a calm and adoring tone that they worked their magic. Shane would instruct Ryan to breathe – _just breathe Ryan, it’ll be okay, I’ve got you –_ until Ryan could feel sensation again in his limbs and breath came easier. Shane always knew how to lighten the mood and would crack a joke or two until Ryan let out a breathy laugh, wiping his eyes. The last time this happened he could’ve sworn he felt the pressure of Shane kissing the top of his head, but that may have been a post-panic attack hallucination.

“Ryan, come over here!” Shane’s voice broke Ryan from his thinking and he rushed through the house. Ryan found him in one of the ground-floor bedrooms looking at a shelf of decaying dolls, with a mix of horror and fascination on his face.

A cold chill washed over Ryan and he couldn’t suppress a shudder. Shane noticed immediately and watched Ryan instead.

“You okay, man?” Shane asked, looking concerned.

“Yeah, just, if you knew the history of the house, you’d be more creeped out too,” Ryan said.

“Any chance you’ll share some details before the cameras start rolling?” Shane asked.

“Short version: couple with young child move here in the late 80s, the dolls come with the house and the previous owners claim they’re haunted, the new couple calls bull but right after they try to pack them into boxes to get rid of them after their daughter starts getting creeped out by them, a fire starts in the room, so the couple grabs their essentials and hauls ass out of the house, leaving it abandoned,” Ryan finishes.

“Wow. Weird,” Shane says, eyeing the dolls again.

“Weird? That’s all you have to say about that?” Ryan laughs, totally disbelieving.

“Yeah, I don’t know it was probably just an electrical fire or something, those can happen in older houses,” Shane shrugs.

“You are unbelievable, man,” Ryan rolls his eyes and starts to leave the room, totally creeped out by the wall of dolls. The full moon was already enough to set him on edge, staying in a room of dozens of creepy and possibly pyromaniac dolls longer than necessary was really not something Ryan felt like doing.

So, he left Shane in the room and started making his way around. The place was creepy, like really creepy. The pictures he saw of it online were of course super unsettling but there’s something unnerving about walking into an old abandoned place, smelling the mold and dank air, hearing the skittering of small vermin, and the ominous creak as the old wooden frame settled down for the night.

Ryan walked through the twisting hallways, trying to watch his step for loose nails and broken glass, as he ducked his head into every room he passed. Thankfully the house wasn’t too big or else he definitely would have gotten lost. There was just enough light outside from the sun sinking down into the horizon that he didn’t need to depend on his flashlight yet, and while the house was creepy in its own right, he knew that once the sun finally set and they were bathed in darkness, there was no way he’d have the courage to be wandering around by himself.

+++++++

There was something about dolls that always creeped Shane out, even back when there was not the unnerving supernatural nature applied to them by decades of doll-themed horror movies concocted by Hollywood. Maybe it was the fact that they looked so human and young children acted like they were real, that just lent them an eerie aura.

Either way, Shane had to be a little impressed by whichever previous owner liked them enough to buy about two dozen of them as he peered at them on the wall.

He could hear Ryan wandering around throughout the house. Shane couldn’t hear any shrieking or nervous muttering so he figured Ryan was fine.

_We should probably head back out though, it would be better to not wander too much and ruin any reactions to the house before we can get them on camera,_ Shane thought to himself, leaving to the room to go find where Ryan wandered off when he heard a loud crash and a shout.

Shane felt himself go numb in worry and immediately burst into action.

_Ryan._

He tried to maneuver his long limbs through the small doorway and narrow hallway towards the crash as fast as humanly possible, wildly looking into every room Ryan could have possibly been in. This was one of those times that Shane wished the old folktales about vampires turning into bats were true, at least then he’d be able to get to Ryan faster.

The crash seemed to rock the entire house and panic started to grip Shane’s heart. He knew that Ryan would die eventually but he’d hoped to have at least a few more years and it not happen during a fucking shoot.

Shane was frantic, and when he finally ducked into the room Ryan had been in, his panic only increased further. Where Ryan should have been standing was a hole in the flooring.

“Ryan!” Shane hollered, taking another few steps towards the hole.

“Shane! Don’t move, the floor is really weak in here!” Ryan called back, coming from the hole. He sounded like he was in pain.

“Ryan, are you okay?” Shane said, relieved that Ryan was at least alive but hearing the other man did little to calm his panic.

Of all of the times in episodes Ryan had been trying to find something to scare Shane, of course it was completely unrelated to ghosts.

“I think my busted my ankle but I should be fine,” Ryan said again, Shane could hear the scraping of a boot on dirt. He was at least fine enough to be moving.

“Where are you?” Shane asked, already making to leave the room and find some way down.

“A cellar, I think. I don’t know it’s really dark down here and I think I broke my flashlight in the fall,” Ryan’s voice was starting to shake and Shane immediately went back into panic mode.

Shane ran out of the room, opening up every door he passed looking for a staircase to the cellar. On the other side of the house he could hear some of the crew running in.

“Did something happen, guys? We heard a crash,” a voice called out.

“Ryan fell through the floor, call an ambulance I think he’s hurt!” Shane called back.

Finally finding a staircase down, Shane turned on his flashlight and started to descend the stairs as fast as he could without risking falling and hurting himself in the process. He was probably going to be covered in spiderwebs after this but he couldn’t even bring himself to care. He needed to be near Ryan as soon as possible.

Shane called out again, wildly swinging his flashlight around, trying to spot Ryan. Ryan called back from what seemed a few rooms away.

The cellar was sectioned into separate rooms all filled with miscellaneous junk but thankfully there were no doors in the frames so Shane could rush through quickly.

Finally, he found Ryan sitting in the dirt, holding his ankle, surrounded by broken floorboards and debris. Shane immediately rushed over to him and took Ryan’s face in his hands, inspecting to see the damage.

Ryan had some cuts and marks that would definitely develop into some nasty bruises but overall he seemed fine. The tear tracks on Ryan’s face cutting through the dust caked on his face, worried Shane the most.

“Ryan, what happened?”

“I was just walking around and I must have accidently stepped on some rotting floorboards,” Ryan replied, his voice laced with pain and panic. That was when Shane took a closer look at Ryan’s ankle. Not the worst break Shane had ever seen but Ryan was definitely going to have to be off his feet for a good few weeks.

“We need to get you back upstairs so we can go to the hospital,” Shane said.

“Okay, just help me up so – “ Ryan started but was cut off as Shane gathered Ryan up in his arms and picked him up bridal style. Ryan let out a small pained noise, whether it was from jostling his ankle or surprise from being hefted into the air, Shane didn’t know but Ryan was safe and that’s all he cared about.

When they emerged from the cellar, they were greeted by their coworkers trying to help but quickly realized Shane was in no mood to let anyone touch Ryan. They hurried out of the house where the ambulance was thankfully already there.

Calling an ambulance was probably excessive as it seemed to just be a broken ankle but there probably would not be enough room in the van with everyone else and all of their equipment for Ryan to prop up his foot properly.

The EMT’s immediately descended upon Ryan and Shane as Shane helped rest Ryan onto the gurney they had. One woman quickly hooked Ryan up to a heart monitor. Another person quickly started asking Ryan questions about his medical history and the events that had taken place but the panic in his face about all that had happened had not yet gone away. Ryan reached for Shane’s hand and gripped it tight as Shane took over answering questions as best as he could while Ryan just focused on breathing and jumping in whenever Shane didn’t know anything.

When they loaded Ryan onto the ambulance, he still did not let go of Shane’s hand and the almost pleading look on Ryan’s face kept Shane rooted by his side.

It was plain to see that Ryan was in a lot of pain and it took a lot of effort to not wolf-out to dull the pain, so, Shane stayed by Ryan’s side in the ambulance as the EMTs started testing his vitals.

“Hey, just keep talking, man,” Shane said to Ryan quietly. “Just pay attention to me. You’ll be okay.”

He sat by his side, holding Ryan’s hand and stroking his hair, trying to soothe his best friend as he did his breathing exercises.

“How about you tell me a story, yeah? What’s so spooky about this house? Besides the rotting floors and giant spiderwebs,” Shane said, noticing his jacket completely covered in cobwebs. Ryan laughed weakly at that. That had to be a good sign.

And so, Ryan quietly told Shane bits and pieces of the house’s history to distract the both of them as they rode to the hospital.

++++++

Three days later Ryan was finally released from the hospital. A broken ankle, two fractured ribs, and a lot of really ugly bruises, but alive.

Those couple of days were a blur of tests, nurses, worried family members, and fitful sleep, but the one calming presence was always Shane. Despite being the middle of the week and being perfectly fine himself, Shane used up some of his sick days to keep Ryan company in the hospital. He brought some movies to watch, a couple books, and of course Ryan’s beloved Paddington stuffed bear to keep him comfortable when everyone had to go home after visitation hours ended.

They wouldn’t even talk too much, Ryan was told by multiple nurses to keep talking and laughing to a minimum lest he aggravate his ribs, but of course they snuck in a few chuckles.

By the third day Ryan told Shane that it was fine to go home, he wouldn’t be too lonely and it was silly for him to be missing so much work, but Shane just shook his head.

“Nah, the Ghoul Boys are inseparable, what’s the point of going to work if you’re not there?” Shane joked lightly, but his earnest expression stopped Ryan from further protest and instead he smiled and relaxed.

That Friday after his release, Shane made his way over to Ryan’s place as usual. A box of microwavable popcorn in one hand and the new Paddington 2 DVD in the other. There was no way either of them would be up for a horror flick tonight and instead could use the lightheartedness of that silly little bear and his antics. It would probably be at least the sixth time Ryan had seen it but there was no way he wouldn’t be down for a seventh.

As Shane walked in, he saw Ryan resting on the couch, his foot was resting on a pillow of his coffee table and was scrolling through Netflix.

“Hey dude,” Ryan twisted around and greeted Shane at the door. His smile was blinding, and with everything that had happened that week, Shane just barely kept himself from melting into a happy puddle on the floor. Seeing Ryan smiling and safe was something he took for granted before but now he would quietly cherish.

Shane smiled back and asked how he felt as he made his way into the kitchen to start making the popcorn and pour one of the bags of blood waiting for him in the fridge into a glass. Ryan called back some rant about not being able to play basketball or go to the gym anytime soon and Shane just laughed.

“So how long till you can come back to work?” Shane asked after putting the Paddington DVD into the player and plopping down onto the couch with all their snacks, totally ignoring the pretense of sitting separately as he put his arm around Ryan’s shoulders. Something changed in the hospital between all the time together, the hand-holding and the near-death experiences. Shane had no idea where it was going but was excited to find out.

“Doctor said at least a month but with the whole werewolf thing and fast-healing it could be a lot sooner, we’ll just have to see,” Ryan said reaching for the popcorn.

“I’m sure the fans will understand,” Shane replied, he had already seen the thousands of “get well soon”s from their fans on social media. Ryan just smiled and started up the movie.

Despite it being his favorite movie, Ryan couldn’t help but nod off halfway through, he hadn’t slept much in the hospital so it was all finally catching up to him. Shane figured as much though and didn’t wake him until the movie was over and he saw how late it was.

He gently woke Ryan up and helped him into his bed, but as he was about to leave Ryan called out to him.

“Hey, Shane, stay,” Ryan said quietly.

Shane turned back around to see Ryan’s face soften and knew he could never resist those eyes. He was thoroughly fucked and was competently okay with it.

Shane took off his shoes and climbed into bed with Ryan.

“Is this alright?” Shane asked.

Their eyes locked and suddenly it was last Friday all over again. Shane felt the same longing as last time, this time even stronger. He had almost lost his best friend in the entire world, and even after spending the last few days by his side, he just couldn’t feel close enough. Ryan’s eyes glanced down at Shane’s lips and everything clicked.

“Yeah,” Ryan answered back, his voice barely above a whisper.

With that Shane propped himself up on his elbow and leaned over. He gently kissed Ryan. It started as only a brief touch of lips but Ryan brought up his hand and carded his fingers through Shane’s hair, bringing him closer and kissing him more firmly. It was a gentle back and forth; they could have gone much farther but Ryan was not supposed to move too much. They might have stayed like that for hours but Shane had no idea, sinking deeper and deeper into the feeling. It should have felt like a more urgent wanting, a new and surprising experience, but really this had been something stewing for a while. Whatever silly name they might have called their relationship – The Ghoul Boys, ghoulfriends, whatever – deep down they knew it was something more than just a friendship and it would be for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Please leave kudos and let me know what you thought in the comments!


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